But his mother needed no encouragement. She wasn’t in the same condition she’d been in before her captivity, but her training as a fighter and her eagerness to escape this hellhole didn’t fail her entirely. She pressed hard at his heels, pushing Johnis faster.

They slipped through the upper house and into the storage room. Johnis searched the staircase one last time to see if Karas might have decided to follow them after all, but only darkness stared up at him.

When he stuck his head back into the pantry, Rosa was already out and Silvie halfway. He piled through the window after them.

“This way!” Johnis sprinted to the stables, ignored Thomas’s horse which, though normally faster, was worn half-dead from the night ride, and chose three stallions in close stalls. These were undoubtedly among the best the Horde owned, picked from among the hundreds of thousands they bred for war.

A dog began to bark from one of the nearby houses. “Forget the saddles. Bridles only.”

They slid the Scab-designed bits into the horses’ mouths and threw their legs over bare backs.

“You came back, Johnis,” Silvie said. “Thank you. You’re a bold man.”

“And a bit foolish,” he said. “Okay, remember it’s a full sprint. They may give chase, but we stand a good chance if we don’t hesitate. You know the way, Silvie. Right down the middle of the city. If they have the city gate blocked, split two ways and join at the boulders. Ready?”

“Let’s go.” Silvie grabbed a sword off the wall, kicked her mount, and pushed past the doors, followed by Rosa, who snatched down her own blade.

“She’s right,” Rosa said, drilling Johnis with a bright stare. “You’ve grown into a bold man since I last saw you.”

“I missed you, Mother.”

“And I missed you, my son.”

The sky was fully gray now. Roosters crowed here and there about the city. The dog that had started to bark stilled, but now another answered it from across the way.

Thrall woke in the same way the Middle Forest woke, Johnis thought, and then spurred his horse forward. Silvie, then Rosa, then Johnis bringing up the rear.

He rounded the house, followed them into the street already at a full gallop, and glanced back at the temple. It was simply a parting look, perhaps because he knew he would be back for the books soon and wanted to imprint the lay of the land on his mind.

Instead the sight of a young child seared his mind, like a branding iron on a horse’s hide.

Karas.

She stood in a large triangular window above the temple’s main door, feet strapped tightly together, arms bound behind her back.

A hangman’s noose hung around her neck.